Long have I loved you. I should like, for my pleasure,
To call you "Mother" and to present to you an artless song,
To you, the most beautiful city of the Fatherland,
As far as I have seen.

As the bird of the forest flies over the peaks,
so the bridge lightly and strongly swings itself
across the river, there where the river gleams past you -
the bridge ringing with wagons and people.

As if sent by gods, an enchantment once bound me
to the bridge, as I walked the past,
the magic captured me as well
when the bewitching distance shone into the mountains for me.

And the youth, the river, travelled off into the lowlands,
sadly happy, as the heart, when, finding itself too beautiful,
throws itself, to perish in love,
into the floodwaters of time.

You gave the fleeing one
cooling shadows,
and all the riverbanks gazed
after him.  And the lovely image
sounded from the waves.





But heavily into the valley hung the gigantic
castle that knows fate - down to the valley floor,
rent by the weather;
but the eternal sun poured

its rejuvenating light  over the aging
colossal edifice, and all about it grew living
ivy, friendly forests
soughed down over the castle.

Shrubs bloomed downward to the joyful valley
where, leaned against the hills or caressing the shore,
your merry streets
rest under scented gardens.